


A Single Story

by VivificanousPrime



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alpha Trion has answers, Megatron just wants justice, Orion Pax has questions, Pre-War, Young Megatron, Young Optimus Prime, Young Orion Pax
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:34:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29679171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivificanousPrime/pseuds/VivificanousPrime
Summary: After yet another confrontation with people who proudly wear their ignorance, Orion Pax begins to struggle with how to reconcile personal freedoms with basic decency. Seeing his mentee in distress, Alpha Trion offers the young archivist an analogy....Orion learns a valuable lesson but can't seem to reteach it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	A Single Story

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot started off as an analogy I came up with that helped me make sense of why some people just don't seem to care about the hate they give. It was therapeutic for me, so I hope this helps you, too.
> 
> Enjoy!

The novel in his hand felt foreign. There was a weight to it he had never noticed before, as though its contents had been given tangency.

He flipped it over to his other hand. The front screen was still dimmed, but he could see the faint impressions of its title page on the interior of the glass, left there after centuries of being onlined and quickly put away. Gravitas’s words were of the many overlooked by most modern scholars. For so much of his life, he couldn’t figure out why.

He was much older now. Of course Gravitas was ignored. The mech was once a laborer.

“Orion?”

“I’m over here,” he called out, not looking up from the novel. Idly, he onlined it and scrolled through the screen until he came to his favorite chapter.

“More ancient philosophers?” Alpha Trion teased in that way Orion knew to be his way of detecting what was bothering him. Rather than playing games with his emotions, Orion shot his mentor a tired frown. “I see...what’s wrong?”

“I just...I just don’t understand.”

Alpha Trion wrapped a servo around his shoulders. Not quite comforting him, but not leering over him either. “Walk with me. Leave poor Gravitas here, he can’t talk with you as I do.”

“No, but he does seem to speak my mind better than I can.” Still, he shoved the novel back in its place on the shelf. His mentor squeezed his shoulder lightly before beginning to wander down the row of shelves, and Orion made sure to follow right at his side.

“Was it something someone said to you?”

“No, not one person, I suppose.” Orion tucked both servos under each of his arms, holding back the distress he had felt in the bar. “I just...I feel as if I’m seeing the same kinds of people everywhere, right now.”

“What ‘kinds of people’?”

Orion glanced down at the floor. It wasn’t often Alpha Trion used his disappointed tone on him, so the chill in it crawled up his spinal struts. “I just mean that certain people have a...an attitude, I suppose. They’re not _mean_ , but they are in a way. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“There comes a time in our lives when we realize not everyone holds the same views we do,” Alpha Trion explained softly. “We are all defensive of our beliefs.”

“It’s not that it’s a defense, though.” Orion looked up at his mentor, hoping to find understanding in his stern features. But he was as blank as always. “I don’t understand how people can be so—so _unempathetic_. And hypocritical, and—and just...” His mouth moved around the thick emotion coiling in his throat, but he couldn’t give it a name. Instead, he shut his eyes with a frustrated huff.

Alpha Trion nodded along to his short rant as if agreeing with everything he said. That was comforting, at least. There was a moment he was beginning to think he might be alone in his thoughts.

The end of the row opened their path to the long, main hall of the archives. Magnificent windows spanned the tall walls, intricate details playing across the clear glass. Outside, the midday sun was bright and illuminating the entire hall with its warmth. Orion basked in it, letting the chill in his struts thaw.

With a tired ex-vent, he added, “I think I’m beginning to see how truly ignorant the world can be...and it hurts.”

A fond chuckle flooded the corridor. “The whole world is ignorant?”

Orion glanced over at his mentor, making sure his frown portrayed how unamused he was at the light tone. “I know not the _whole_ world. Just enough of it.”

Alpha Trion shook his helm at him, but Orion couldn’t find any real malice in the gesture.

He wouldn’t have wasted several klicks in silence had his mentor not moved over to an unoccupied desk. Novels laid strewn about, and the elder Archivist walked around the desk to pick up each one and place them in a single pile. Steady hands gripped a novel and balanced it on its side. Carefully, another was stood up against the first.

“I...um, I was out with Wheeljack this morning, and we ran into a friend of his,” Orion continued, watching with distracted interest as his mentor added another novel to the row. “You know how Wheeljack is. We ended up in this bar, and some people were talking...”

Alpha Trion picked up another novel, this time setting it against the bottoms of its predecessors. Another, then another was added until the originals were contained in a makeshift box of datapads.

“...so, we were talking, and the news was on. It was just—the mech was just speaking very loudly about untruthful things. And when I corrected him, he got upset and told me, um...some words I’d rather not repeat.”

“Were you being rude?”

“I didn’t think I was,” Orion defended. He shuffled a little closer to the desk to inspect the growing fort. “Wheeljack liked what I said.”

Alpha Trion grinned at that, picking up another novel. This one he set aside, balanced on its side as all the others were. Orion watched as yet another novel was lifted, prepared to see it take it’s place in the new stack. But Alpha Trion set that one on its wider front atop the first stack.

“I really did try to be kind,” Orion insisted. “I told him what the protests were actually about. And that most of them haven’t been violent. That when they are, the Enforcers have been the instigators.” His eyes tracked another novel being removed from the pile. Curiously, his mentor set this one atop the second stack in much the same way he had done to the first, only with more care to ensure the balancing act would not fail. “The mech wouldn’t listen to me, though. Wheeljack said he was ignorant.”

For the first time in their conversation, Alpha Trion directed his steel gaze at him. “There is only one type of person, Orion: an informed one.”

Orion nodded, but his mind quickly supplied him all the evidence he needed of the contrary. He would have said as much had Alpha Trion not raised a hand to silence him. With that same servo, his mentor gestured to the two stacks he had made.

As hard as he looked, though, Orion couldn’t see what either was supposed to mean. He carefully walked up to the desk and peered over at the various works that made up each fort. Whoever had been here last must have been doing extensive research on Crystal City, but aside from that, there didn’t seem to be a correlation in content. So, he focused on the forts’ shapes. The first resembled more of a foundation with a top platform, each of the datapads pressed flush against each other and rested along the thinner sides. The second stack was far simpler. Just a single novel stood on the desk, lifting the platform one balanced atop it.

Orion looked up as movement in his periphery caught his attention. His mentor had grabbed yet another datapad, but now he made a show setting it on the first stack. The foundations held, so another was set on it. One after another, datapads were stacked on the box made of novels until the fort stood taller than Orion himself.

The second stack was a different story. Delicate as he was, Alpha Trion couldn’t keep it from falling under the gravity of another novel. The two original texts collapsed to the table with the third, but their wake didn’t so much as vibrate its neighbor.

“It happens to most of us,” Alpha Trion said, turning on the smooth tones of his teaching voice. “We are given more than we can handle, and we simply cannot support it. These collapses, however—” the novel that had failed to support and the one that caused the fall were leaned against each other, allowing the platform novel to rest comfortably on top of them both “—they are gateways to reinvention.” A new datapad was retrieved and added to the shorter stack, along with two more. It wobbled, but this time, the foundation held.

It felt like eons passed him by as he gazed at the two stacks. Understanding came like a warmth to his systems, and eventually, Orion nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.” Alpha Trion lifted his hand to hover another novel over the shorter fort. “To fall in such a way is one of the most frightening experiences a person can face. It is vital that you comprehend what I am telling you.”

Orion swiftly nodded, eyes wide and audials as open as he could make them.

“Always test your own limits and encourage the same in others. But some are well content to stay just as they are, and that must be respected.” 

“I understand, Alpha Trion, but—”

“No, Orion.” His mentor’s eyes brightened and narrowed, their light piercing through his core. “You have no authority over anyone else, and therefore, you cannot force someone into this fall.” The novel in his hand was set down without much care, crumbling the weaker stack. “That is not your decision to make. We are all free to be as we are, and whether you believe you are in the right or not, you have no right to decide this fate for anyone.”

“But I don’t have an issue with that,” he protested, motioning to the pile of novels on the desk. He located the single datapad that had failed to hold up the formation and grabbed it. “I wouldn’t have a problem with people,” Orion clarified, holding up the novel, “if their views were not built on harming others. It—I’m not offended by what has been said to me—I don’t believe most are—but we have been _hurt_ by them.”

“’Them’?” That disappointment returned but this time accompanied by a deep frown. “Under no circumstances, Orion Pax, should you ever sink so low as to use an ‘us versus them’ mentality. All anyone can do is try to add knowledge to themselves and brace if that has caused them to fall. You—” he indicated Orion with a stern digit “—simply do not know, and never could know, which tower you are. Now, I have done everything in my power to forge in you a foundation such as this,” he said, gesturing to the first stack, “but if I am more akin to the latter, then I can give you no more than what I have.”

He understood. Truly, he did. The words his mentor spoke to him made sense, and the wisdom they held was clear as midday. But Orion couldn’t shake how _wrong_ it felt. He couldn’t see past the coiling in his chest created by the hate people gave and his own desires to raise others out of such disease.

Warmth flooded his shoulders. Orion looked up, blinking away frustrated tears, to search for any reprieve in his mentor’s eyes. The gaze that met his was filled with nothing but sorrow.

“I’m sorry, Orion,” Alpha Trion said as softly as the sunlight. “To be educated is to be forever burdened, and I apologize that you must bear it.”

“No...no, I’d rather this. I’d rather be uncomfortable with knowledge and insight than be secure in ignorance and falsehoods. I just...” The words tried to escape him, but he trapped them in a tightened fist. “I just wish people would realize how harmful they are. Maybe then, their sparks would change.”

“You are a good person, Orion. The best you can do is lead by example.”

Sunset cast the archive’s hall in a warm glow. Its light refracted in the detailing on the windows, blinding wanderers as they made their way down the grand hall.

Orion lifted a hand to block out the sunlight. He wasn’t another scholar meandering down the rows upon rows of knowledge, aimlessly searching. He had a clear goal in mind. And said goal had reportedly run off this direction about a joor ago.

It didn’t take much longer to find Megatron slumped over one of the desks. A window faced his back, showering him in warm rays that seemed to slide right off his rigid form. He didn’t move when his name was called nor when Orion placed a comforting hand on his back between his shoulders.

For vorns, now, Orion had let this unwillingness to face personal turmoil go. His hopes had been centered around Megatron coming to understand the need for self-reflection in his own time. If he were being truly honest, though, there was a large part of him that simply didn’t want to see his friend suffer more than he already had. But his intensions hardly mattered when the person he wanted to aid was holding his head in his hands, looking as though he were on the verge of shattering.

“Megatron...my friend, I want to help.” When he received no indication his words were even heard, Orion slid his hand across the grey back to grip at a spiky shoulder. “I cannot do that if I don’t know what is wrong.”

“What is wrong...” Megatron hissed, the deep gravel in his voice thick and rumbling, “...the whole world is wrong.”

“The whole world?” Orion pulled at the nearest chair with his ped until it was close enough to sit in, never once letting the contact between them break. “Not the _whole_ world.”

“Explain it to me then. Why are so many content to live in hatred and ignorance? Why are they so unwilling to hear me? Or hear from any ideology that does not align with theirs, for that matter?”

“Well...um,” Orion hummed, searching for what he could possibly say. It wasn’t as if this feeling was foreign to him. And it wasn’t as if he was anything resembling his mentor as far as wisdom and experience were concerned. “It’s...it can be scary to confront your own shortcomings. Especially when you have been told your entire life that you are on the right path.”

“But why is no one _concerned_?” Megatron raised his head out of the barricade he had made with his servos. Orion had no trouble identifying every tell in his friend’s face. His optics were bright with frustrations that bordered on fury, his mouth drawn into a tense snarl that reeked of desperation. “Do they just not _care_? Is it really nothing to them that their words and their actions and their very religions are cruel?”

Something clicked, sparking a moment in his memory banks to resurface. “Hold on.”

Orion could feel Megatron’s curious gaze press against his back as he rushed over to a return pile and grabbed as many datapads as he could handle. The novels were spilled across the table and quickly organized into two piles.

“So, think of all these files as being what we learn throughout our lives,” he explained as one by one, novels were leaned against each other all on their sides.

It was more difficult than he remembered it being for his mentor, but Orion tried not to let every wobble in his foundation dig at his confidence. When a datapad fell down, he swiftly rightened it before Megatron could focus too heavily on it.

“And you are this one.” He lifted a random datapad to show to his friend, then set it down on the foundation as Alpha Trion had, like a platform for a stage. “Now, everyone is...it was, um—informed! We’re all informed by something, or many things. So, some of us are this,” he gestured to the foundation he’d made, “while others...” Orion paused his thoughts to focus on balancing the second tower’s single novel. He let his hands hover on either side of it for a klick before he grabbed another novel. “Others are this one.” Delicately, he placed it on top. The supporting novel trembled and would have fallen too early had he not caught it in time. Small adjustments were made, and the two-novel tower held itself.

It was only then he noticed what he had grabbed. Gravitas’s name scrawled across the top of the datapad proudly laid across the weaker frame. Orion did his best not to let on the discomfort he felt towards its presence, not wanting to confuse his friend or have to rebalance the tower with a different novel.

Megatron shifted his focus between the two, his eyes narrowing the longer the silence drew on. “I see...”

“Yes. Wait—” Orion took a few more datapads and set them on top of the first tower’s platform. “So, you are this one, and—because you have the stronger foundations—you won’t fall when knowledge is added to you.”

Megatron’s eyes brightened. “But the other tower will.”

“Exactly, yes.” For the sake of completing the analogy, Orion proudly set another novel atop the second tower and watched it crumble to the table. “No one likes falling. And it’s wrong of us to make someone collapse like this.”

“Why?”

“Be...because it’s wrong.” Orion searched the table for any flaw in his rendition, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find a gap in his explanation. “It’s frightening to have everything you knew to be true taken from you. You can’t force anyone to fall like that. Would you want that done to you?”

The snarl changed in some subtle way. It might have crept further across Megatron’s face. Perhaps his denta were just slightly barer. Whatever the change, it sent a freeze through his systems, starting in his spark. “I would,” Megatron said, leaving no room for doubt. Still, he explained himself. “If I were living in ignorance, if my views and actions were causing undo harm, I would want someone to tear me down and remake me. Wouldn’t you?”

What was he supposed to say? That he would rather remain in a false bliss? Of course, he wouldn’t. But this wasn’t where his conversation with Alpha Trion had gone. “I...yes, if I was the second tower, I would want to be given more than information to reinvent myself with. But that is my decision to make, and mine alone.”

“So, you think that we shouldn’t push the superior and the oppressors to change their ways?”

“No, that’s not—of course, we want to help everyone we can to see errors in their ways, but that should not come at the expense of our own morals.”

“How is it immoral?”

“Because you can’t force people to face what they can’t or don’t want to handle! That’s wrong.”

“If frightening these people is the best way for them to understand their cruelty, then would it not be ‘wrong’ to stand by and let them cause others harm?”

Orion gripped the edge of the table, leaning all his weight on it. His optics shut to drown out the image of his friend’s betrayed expression. The last thing he wanted to do was cast his friend’s opinions aside, to tell him he was wrong, and add to the pain he was already experiencing. At the same time, he didn’t know where this was going.

Cycling his vents, Orion tried to calm his voice. “I know it’s hard to understand. I felt this way when Alpha Trion explained it to me. The important thing to remember is to avoid separating us all into an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. We can grow and learn from there.”

Megatron pushed himself up, towering over Orion enough to block out the sunset’s dimming lights. With a growl beneath his voice, he countered, “It is not my doing, this _separation_. They have chosen to divide us and to inflict their so-called righteousness upon me and my people.” That snarl relaxed, morphing into a steady frown as he peered down at Orion. “Thank you...for enlightening me. I can see know the solution to so many of our problems.”

“No, no, wait!” Orion made to grab at an arm or a hand or anything remotely in his reach, but Megatron was far faster. His form was gliding down the hall before the words properly formed.

Shock welded Orion to the floor. Shock, and perhaps a small portion of utter confusion. He fell back into his chair and let his helm find reprieve in resting in his hands. The two towers still laid out before him, one a spiring figure, the other a crumbled mess. There was nothing he could think to do but analyze again and again what he’d said and what he did. He had been wrong. Where, he couldn’t find, but what other explanation was there?

“I don’t understand,” he whimpered to no one save himself. Slowly, his helm fell further into his hands until its weight slipped between them and collapsed against the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I love feedback, so let me know what you think!
> 
> All my work exists in the same storyline, and I have another one-shot already posted that takes place some time after this. 
> 
> Stay safe! Stay kind!


End file.
